Stardate 27th May – 1st June

The grass was green, the sun shining and dry weather promised for a week so it was time to make the hay.
I then found out what happens when long grass gets wrapped around the PTO


The cleaning kit


And an hour or so later with help from the chickens


Cutting continued followed by the tedding and ….


By the next day it was drying well and didn’t clog the tedder.


Another day of tedding and it was ready to bale.


The next day it was time to start bringing the bales in. I’d had lots of people who had said they would help with the haymaking but, the week of good weather, coincided with the week everyone was unavailable - sod’s law really. So off I set to the field.


The set of steps is essential as I’m too short to get onto the trailer without it. I could only lift the bales as high as the base level of the trailer, so I had to leave a gap at that level to place the bales onto the trailer and to get on and off the trailer. Added to that, the planks on the floor of the trailer are pretty rotten so I had to be really careful not to fall through. It took about 4 days but eventually I got all the bales, 250 or more (I lost count), into the hay loft – and only fell through that floor once.


It was hard work but I had a real sense of achievement at the end; the hay looked and smelt lovely and best of all, the alpacas loved it.